20 Years DF7ZS

23’rd August 2015: Exactly 20 years ago I made my first (legal) HF QSO signing DF7ZS! I was so excited to be on the air again, that I have used almost every opportunity to have that strange sideband sound in my ears. Just the same weekend after my license arrived we had our local club fieldday. We had a Kenwood TS-440 in a tent and a 20m dipole approximately 5 meters above the ground. The dipole was not supported by trees as you would expect, it was more or less …a bigger bush. One of the first QSOs I made was with a Swedish station picking up my weak signal from the noise reporting that he was using a 6 over 6 over 6 yagi on 20m. No wonder he was THAT loud!

Now 20 years later, I think I am more hooked to the hobby than ever. I have almost 66.000 QSOs in my own DF7ZS log and I made round about 100.000 QSOs more using different call signs and operating from different countries and continents. There are a couple of contest plaques on my wall, also a 9 Band DXCC Plaque (5BDXCC + stickers), 314 confirmed entities and I am still not done! I met so many great people on the air and in person that I would not have met without that great hobby. Thanks to everybody for that great time and cheers for the next 20 years on the radio! Still some goals to be reached!

Also a big thanks to my wife Yvonne for supporting all this crazy shit and looking after our lovely son Timothy Lukas when I am on the radio! Hope he will be interested as well once he is old enough! He already loves pushing buttons and turning the golden VFO wheel.